Commerce and International Privacy Activities: APEC

The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is a grouping of 21 member economies in the Asia Pacific Region, including Russia, China, and the United States. APEC was established in 1989 to facilitate economic growth, cooperation, trade, and investment in the region.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is a forum for 21 member economies in the Asia Pacific region. APEC includes Russia, China, and the United States as members. APEC adopted a Privacy Framework in 2004. The APEC Privacy Framework is largely viewed as an attempt to create a different international privacy regime as an alternative to the European Union’s Data Protection Directive. Whether APEC will succeed in influencing international privacy developments in a meaningful way remains to be seen.

Whether the APEC Privacy Framework is a useful development is a debatable point, and much depends on the perspective of the person doing the analysis. Papers on the subject can be found on various sides from scholars and others. [53] A substantive analysis of APEC’s privacy work is beyond the scope of this paper because it is not a direct product of the US Department of Commerce but the result of an international collaboration, with the Department being the US representative to APEC through the International Trade Administration of the Department.

However, the role of the Department of Commerce in influencing the decision of APEC to become involved with privacy is relevant here. According to one analyst, efforts by the United States government were influenced directly by the US business community and were the “key motivation” for APEC’s Privacy Framework.

The key motivation for the development of the APEC Privacy Framework appears to stem from US business concerns regarding compliance with the EU Directive, and concerns regarding the potential expansion of the EU approach to other jurisdictions. These concerns coincided with growing interest in the US in the concept of enterprise-wide corporate privacy rules.

Although this is not the sole motivating factor, and many other countries participated in the development of the APEC Privacy Framework, it is unlikely that the Framework would exist without the influence of US business interests.[54]

The same analysis points to statements on the website of an American law firm representing business on privacy matters in which the law firm effectively claims credit for developing the idea behind the APEC Privacy Framework and bringing that idea to the US government. [55] This underscores the role of the US business community in influencing the international privacy activities of the Department of Commerce.

This new WPF report finds that medical identity theft is still a crime that causes great harms to its victims, and that it is growing overall in the United States; however, there’s a catch. The national consumer complaint data suggests that the crime is growing at different rates in different states and regions of the US, creating medical identity theft “hotspots.” These hotspots are important for patients, policymakers, and healthcare stakeholders to know about so as to address potential risks.

WPF has conducted original research on India's Aadhaar, a national biometric ID system, including field research in India during 2010-2014. WPF has published the original research in a peer-reviewed journal, Nature-Springer, and in Harvard-based Journal of Technology Science. The research found that systemic challenges to data protection and privacy exist in the Aadhaar system, challenges which do have potential remedies. Key lessons can be learned for both the US and the EU as biometric systems grow in popularity.